


Heart Behind Bone

by SolainRhyo



Category: Swamp Thing (Comics), Swamp Thing (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet thoughts, Doubting hearts, F/M, She loves him for what he is, The scenes I wished we'd gotten, The way it should have been, finding each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolainRhyo/pseuds/SolainRhyo
Summary: She is the first one to see him rise from the waters, a monster—the first to understand him, to know him, to care for him.
Relationships: Abby Arcane/Alec Holland, Abby Arcane/Swamp Thing
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	Heart Behind Bone

She is the first living being he sees.

He is nothing but the nascent avatar of the swamp, fighting his way out of the dark water with heavy, uncoordinated steps and flailing arms. He is only instinct in these moments, instinct and rage and fear and confusion. He is…  _ new, _ but he’s also part of another existence, another life, a life that ended in flame and agony. It’s those painful memories that have him lunging forward, trying to free himself from the ravages of the death that birthed him into  _ this. _

He can see in the dark. He can see, in perfect detail, every single feature of the woman before him. She is soaked and she is terrified as she stumbles back and away from him, losing her footing in the muck, reaching out to grab the lowest branch of a bald cypress in order to steady herself. He  _ feels _ it when she grabs the branch and it is so disconcerting, so utterly perplexing that, combined with the ongoing assault to his senses and mind, it causes him to topple forward into the water.

She flees.

He is left alone with the water and the plants and the ghosts of the swamp.

**.x.**

He saves her from a corpse reanimated by fury, swarming with insects, a body horrifically mended together by forces he still doesn’t comprehend, a body that he had torn apart. She watches, breathing in panicked gasps, as the corpse dissolves into beetles and worms and grubs and thick black fluid. He watches her. He waits for the moment her eyes will move to him, waits for the terror and disgust that will contort her features when that happens. He is completely still, though internally at war with himself. She matters to him in ways he cannot quite fathom yet. He should turn, leave this place, stride back into the mist and spare her the fear. Some part of him won’t let that happen, though, and so he remains where he is.

She blinks rapidly, turns her head in birdlike increments until it’s facing him. Her gaze starts at his feet and darts upward a bit at a time, taking in all of him slowly, carefully. When her eyes find his face he finds himself stiffening, prepared to endure whatever reaction she has.

She opens her mouth, hesitates, asks, “Are you… are you Alec?”

_ Alec, _ he thinks, two syllables that pluck a chord somewhere deep within him.  _ Yes, _ he thinks, and then aloud says in a voice that somehow manages to be orotund despite its primeval rasp. “I think I am.”

Her posture shifts, the slope of her shoulders easing, the line of her jaw relaxing. She is relieved, he realizes, and wonders at the warmth that sparks in his chest. “Alec,” she says, taking a small step toward him. “I—I am so sorry for what happened… I saw you that night. Do you remember?”

He remembers. Agony and flame, and then the cold and merciless acceptance of the water. And from it he had risen as this  _ thing— _

“Yes.” he says, his response rendered curt by shards of jagged, incomplete memory.

She winces, realizing her transgression. He turns away from her, but from the corner of his eye he sees her lift a hand and reach for him only to check the movement with uncertainty. The warmth in his chest kindles and grows.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. He knows she means it. It helps a little, and he turns back to her. Encouraged by his decision to remain, she says, “I want to help you. I want to do whatever I can. Will you let me?”

He knows what she means by  _ help _ . She wants to find a way to return him to the way he was. He already suspects the futility of such a thing but he allows himself to hope. “Yes,” he says, and is gifted with her smile.

**.x.**

As she suffers a waking nightmare, he holds her close. Her fists rain down upon his chest, his arms, but he experiences no pain. He can feel her trembling, trapped firmly as she is in a cage of dread and panic. His fingers take hold of her wrist firmly but gently and through it, he can feel the frantic thrumming of her pulse.

“Abby,” he says as a muted scream escapes her mouth. “Abby. Let me take this from you.”

The darkness accepts his offer, leaving her in creeping black tendrils, piercing the vines and leaves and moss that comprise his form and weaving their way inward. It is excruciating and he lets her go, staggers backward. She collapses into the mud, looking up at him with wide, bewildered eyes. “Alec?”

He can give no response. He must return the darkness to the place it came from. He stumbles through the trees, heavy footsteps leading him back toward the old, forgotten corpse. Behind him, Abby calls his name. He falls to one knee and clutches at his chest, at the torment that writhes there, before forcing himself up and onward. He arrives and collapses on all fours next to the corpse, outstretches one hand and watches as thin vines unfurl from his fingers to penetrate withered and rotting flesh. The darkness eagerly transfers and leaves him feeling shaken in its wake. She is suddenly next to him, also on her knees, and together they watch as the swamp reclaims the body.

He nearly startles to feel her fingers creeping over his own. His red eyes snap to her.

“Thank you,” she says.

He feels uncomfortable, too aware of what he is and how greatly he differs from her. He looks away. “I did what the swamp wanted,” he says as he reluctantly pulls his hand out from under hers. He stands, turns, prepares to venture back out into the vast wilderness that he now belongs to.

“No,” she disagrees evenly from behind him, “I think you did what  _ you _ wanted.”

“…Yes,” he says after a moment. Her fingers settle on the thick length of his arm, gently squeezing. He closes his eyes, opens them again and looks down at her small hand splayed across his…  _ flesh.  _ Her touch is many things to him, all of them confounding, but what matters most to him is that she is not afraid. 

**.x.**

He is attacked by a man and a woman. His leg is caught in a steel bear trap. Their ammunition – bullets, ketamine darts – cause pain, but aren’t debilitating. He rips the trap apart and is beset with a rage so profound it overrides every other thought he has. He charges them, a hulking, shadowy figure with red eyes that moves through trees and water with vengeful conviction. He rushes them and they try to flee and he makes use of the arsenal the swamp provides. He cripples one and blinds another, and no small part of him exults in their screams of agony and fear as they flee toward their boat. 

Abby seeks him out hours later, aware that he has been attacked. He watches as she bounds out of the boat and calls his name as she strides through the trees in search of him. 

“Did they tell you about the monster that attacked them?” he asks.

Her head swivels to find him standing silhouetted by moonlight, one hand upon a tree. She quickly approaches. She denies the self-recrimination and disgust interwoven with his words. “You were defending yourself.”

She reaches for him. He steps back. The rage has faded and all he has now is a pervading sense of loss of self. He had intended to kill them. He is entirely certain he would have enjoyed it. 

“I’m not going to give up on you,” she whispers, softly entreating. She knows he has already given up on himself. 

_ Abby, I –  _ he thinks, but then the sound of a boat’s motor becomes audible, accompanied by voices. More hunters. They want him. They will never stop coming for him. He says as much, turns away from her and uses the inexplicable power of the Green to vanish among the trees and the fog and the moss. 

He pretends he can’t hear her calling after him.

**.x.**

In time, he is able to know the moment she sets foot within his domain. Her presence is a balm, a thing he craves that he is certain he should not crave. They both know the truth of it now—he is not Alec Holland. He is not the man she thought he was. He carries pieces of that man, Alec’s memories having imprinted upon him at the moment of his creation. But he was never human, never living, never  _ hers. _ She seeks him out frequently, venturing out into the waters in a boat with a fearlessness he admires though it concerns him. She still cares for him. She’s still his friend.

He watches her one night as he stands beneath a tree with sagging branches adorned with moss. She is inside the bar, dancing with a man. The ache in his chest he experiences when he is near her, it is growing. It is a void and it threatens to consume him. Still, he finds he cannot move. He watches and wishes for the impossible.

She sees him, somehow, a wayward glance flicked toward the window capturing him where he stands. Their eyes meet through glass, across distance, through the dark and he withdraws immediately, ashamed of his observations, afraid of what she will think. He turns and strides quickly through the floodplain forest, seeking to forget himself and all he’d seen by immersing himself in the ancient, primal voices of the trees.

Running footsteps behind him. She calls his name, but it’s not  _ his _ name. Still, he halts, half-turns, observes as she runs up to him. He doesn’t know what to do in this moment, as she looks up at him with those dark eyes, breathing hard from exertion. He is riveted by indecision. “I’m sorry,” he offers, aware that the words are likely insufficient.

She shakes her head. “There’s no need to be.”

“I shouldn't have come here—”

“I’m glad you did,” she interrupts. His brow—or what equates to it—furrows as he regards her. She goes on, “You’re here because you feel alone.”

Her insight is as troubling as it is heartening. She blazes on. “I am always here for you if you need me.  _ Always. _ Even,” she adds loudly as he opens his mouth to speak, “if it’s just to talk. Or to sit together in silence. Or to count stars.”

“You were with your friends,” is all he can think to say.

“And I’m with one now,” she responds with a smile. The aching in his chest lessens at the sight. “So,” she says, sidling up to him with a tilt to her head. “What are we going to do tonight?”

“Count the stars,” he answers, startling himself.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she announces, and then gestures out into the night. “Lead on. Take me to your best stargazing spot.”

Bewildered by how thoroughly she defies his expectations, beset with a charged and unfamiliar sense of contentment, he does as she directs.

**.x.**

As time passes, he becomes increasingly afraid for her life. Whatever he is, whatever he was created to do, it is all too dangerous.  _ He  _ is dangerous. Those that hunt him will let nothing get in their way and she is an obstacle to them. He convinces himself that there can be no other way and resolves to keep her safe in the only way he can. 

One night, seated next to her on the dock below what was once Alec Holland’s house, he tells her to go and never return. He keeps his eyes fixed forward over water, unable to look at her as he utters a directive that wounds him as surely as it wounds her.  _ There is no other way,  _ he chants silently, and thinks that if he has a heart or some approximation of it, it is broken now.

“Go,” he says, gentle in his dismissal.

But Abby remains still. She does not speak. After several moments he turns his head to look at her and finds her staring up at him, her eyes brimming, her throat working in a struggle to contain her tumult. It breaks him to see it and he nearly reaches for her to offer what paltry comfort he can, eldritch creature that he is. Subduing that urge requires greater effort than anything he has ever done. 

“I’m not going,” she tells him, tipping her chin upward in a defiant gesture weakened only a little by the watery nature of her voice. 

“You must.”

She gives a slow shake of her head. He sighs, unwilling to have this battle that has to happen for her own good, for her protection, for her  _ life.  _ He says, “Abby–”

She leans up and kisses him.

He is riveted by shock, by astonishment, by a profusion of other emotions, other thoughts. Her mouth on his is soft, warm, the sensation all too fleeting because she pulls away quickly. He cannot look away from her; suddenly skittish, she cannot look at him. He tries to find something,  _ anything,  _ to say but words are proving to be giddily elusive. The significance of what just happened has not escaped him – no, it has  _ changed  _ him, fundamentally, to know how she truly feels. But reality cannot be avoided. He cannot alter the essence of what he is and it’s only now, after her quicksilver kiss, that he realizes he no longer wants to. 

She’s still not looking at him. He lifts his hands and, after a heartbeat of hesitation, settles them on her slender shoulders. Her lashes sweep up and her eyes find his and he lets himself swim in them for a while, studying their color, their depths, the swirling tempest of emotion they house. They hold in them a truth that he had only dreamed possible, a truth she wishes to speak now and he watches as she swallows in preparation to do so. He shakes his head.

“You have to go,” he breathes, and leans down to rest his head against hers. She makes a soft sound of disagreement. His fingers slide down over her shoulders to gently tighten around her upper arms. “It’s too dangerous here for you.”

Her voice is quiet, vulnerable. “I don’t care.”

“I do.” And he does. He does, and he always has, and that’s why what he must say next fractures those parts of him that desperately long to be human. “Abby… go. And don’t come back.”

He lets himself remain this way for only a second longer before he pushes himself away from her. She reaches for him but he’s too quickly gone, slipping into the waters of the cove, masking himself from her sight with the powers of the Green. He should leave but he stays, cloaked in shadow and mist, to observe as she runs her hands over her face, as her breath escapes her in a single choked sob. 

This will be the last time he sees her. He wishes he could have made her smile.

**.x.**

In her absence, he comes to know desolation intimately. This is what it is to simply exist, to function mechanically as cruel nature dictates. He is locked within the mire of his own thoughts, subject to contrition and sorrow, all the while knowing that this is how it must be.

What he had feared comes to pass, eventually. Men come for him in large numbers, heavily armed. He is hesitant to kill them, influenced by a misplaced desire to cling to the human sentiments he had absorbed upon the moment of his creation, the moment of Alec Holland’s death. This hesitation is ultimately what leads to his defeat. 

He is taken captive. He is restrained and then vivisected while conscious, “for science,” he is told. He suffers greatly and it seems there will be no end to it, until abruptly there is. Sliced asunder, the contents of his upper body laid bare, he watches in sluggish disbelief as Abby leans over him. He marks her tears and the way her lip trembles as she struggles with his restraints, pounding on the metal cuffs in frustration when they won’t release. His voice is difficult to muster but it serves him eventually and he directs her to turn off the lights that prevent his body from regenerating. She obeys. His body swiftly mends itself while she works at unfastening his restraints. 

“Abby,” he says when he is free, seated on the edge of the operating slab he’d been laid out upon. She stands before him, her dark eyes wide with concern, the tracks of her tears glistening beneath the fluorescent lights. He continues in wonder, “You came for me.”

_ Always,  _ she says without speaking, moving forward and taking his hand in hers. She lifts it, places his palm against her cheek, leans into his touch. It should seem incongruous, this, his fingers formed of bark and vines and moss and tendrils laid so carefully against the pale cast of her cheek. It should seem that way, but it doesn’t, and he finds himself leaning forward with one singular desire…

Gunfire erupts elsewhere in the building. He slides down from the slab. Still holding his hand, she tugs him after her as she turns and runs for the exit. Together they escape this place, picking their way over bloodied, smoking bodies, slipping out into the night. Once the cool wash of air from outside washes over them both, it’s he that takes the lead. His fingers close around hers and he leads her with his unerring sense of direction into the swamp, beset with something he has never known until now.

It’s hope.

**.x.**

In what was once Alec Holland’s house, he stands before her. He is so tall that her head barely reaches his shoulder, and with her head craned back she gazes at him, her face a map of shifting expressions. His heart, strange and impossible thing that it is (and yes, he has one – he knows that now), is full with a sweet and tortuous ache. He had told her to go and never return, but she had rescued him. She had come for him. She had saved him.

His thoughts must have manifested themselves in the air around them, because she says softly, “I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”

It is he that reaches for her this time and she is motionless as he touches her face. He is trembling, he realizes, running his fingers along her cheek and then, after a moment, downward, along the column of her neck. He stops there, fingers curling around her nape. He steps closer, oddly terrified of his wants and longings, but there is no going back now. He lowers his head and she tips hers back, and they kiss the way he has wanted to for a very long time.

He is not human but he is entirely capable of expressing what he feels, and he does it well enough that by the time they draw apart she is gasping for breath. She runs her hands up his arms, steps into him, and he enfolds her in his embrace. This is all they need here and now, to just  _ be.  _ He holds her and she melts against him and for the first time since he gained awareness, since he was created, he knows contentment. He knows bliss.

“I’m not going to leave,” she says after a while, her voice slightly muffled.

“I wasn’t going to ask you to,” he responds. 

She moves within the circle of his arms, draws back a little in order to give him a searching look. Apparently she finds what she wants in his expression, because she gives a satisfied nod. One of her hands lifts and she splays her fingers along his cheek, strokes a thumb across his skin which is astonishingly sensitive given what it is made of. She pushes herself up on tiptoe, her intent clear, but stricken by sudden doubt he pulls away slightly. Her bewilderment is clear.

“I’m not human,” he needlessly says. 

“I know what you are.”

“I’m not  _ him.” _

“I know what you are,” she repeats slowly, for emphasis, “and I know  _ who _ you are.” She pushes herself up again, her mouth ghosting against his. “I’m here for  _ you,”  _ she says, her breath flowing warmly over his flesh. “You’re what I want.”

“Are you–” he starts, stops as her lips travel across the line of his jaw to emit a low rumble of startled desire, “– are you certain?”

The look she gives him is one of comic displeasure. He smiles, a radiant expression that she has never seen him wear before. “You’re certain,” he says, supplying the answer himself, earning a reward in the form of an answering smile. 

“I love  _ you.”  _ she tells him. “As you are, as you were, as you’re going to be. Do you believe me?”

His response is a wordless, breath-stealing  _ yes. _

**.x.**

They spend the night’s remaining hours outside, on the deck, in the spot he’d chosen months ago for stargazing. She fits against him perfectly, her back to his chest, her hands on his where they lay against her stomach. They speak at length and they are silent. They kiss and they are motionless. There is still so much that they must discover, must learn, must solve. There is still so much to overcome, too, the matter of those who will hunt him continuously without any regard for those who might stand in their way. She is in danger simply for knowing him but he understands now that it is her choice to make, whether to stay or to go. He also understands that no matter what, she will remain – and he could never let her go. Not now.

Loving him will be difficult. Loving her will make him vulnerable. The darkness still encroaches upon the swamp. The Green still has its machinations. 

They’ll endure it all together.


End file.
